The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-08-25
catch the train, and as babe him and his
wife goodbye, received cordial invita-
ton to come again about harvest time.
CAsPAR S. YoST.
No Mercy For Pirates.
Ern1n Az Nelr Vol. lSMn.

was Lieutenant aboard of H. NJ. s. Spit
| fire, tell of his adventures among the pirates
| who used to make the coast of Arabia and
| Persia such a terror to seamen. 1t took
many years and plenty of hard knocks to
clear the seas of those gentry, and the
crews of the war ships received more
wounds than prize money. One story In
particular which | heard my father tell
several times over had peculiar interest
for me- for | had seen the vessel spoken of
in dock at Liverpool. | will give the yarn
in his own language as near as can:
1--WE had ran across from the Laccadlve
Islands to the Gulf of Alden, and were just
inside the Island of Socotra when we picked
up sailor floating on a plank. 1t was
about Z O'Clock in the morning. with little.
or no sea running, and the lookout saw him
when he was yet a mile away. How he
was preserved from the sharks has always
been matter OF mystery to me. When we
lowered II boat to pick HIM up he was fairly
surrounded by the hungry monsters
Through the ships glass | counted nineteen
cutting the water around his float, and
could not believe that the boat would
be able to reach him before he was
drawn down. If Providence ever makes
special effort for poor humanity it made a
grand effort to preserve that sailors life
and permit him TO fulfill his mission. He
was drawn safely aboard the boat and
story. He had been second mate on board
an American brig named the True Flag. |
think she hailed from Boston, but am not
sure. ! saw her in Liverpool three years
before this incident, and painted on her
stern was the first American flag | had ever
seen except at distance. This was the
reason remembered her above all Others.
THE American had been up the Gulf and
into the Red Sea, and had come out with
mai n a
bat to finish loading, when he was attacked
by three pirate dhows This occurred the
the evening before and only twenty miles
north of the island. The attack was made
after shutdown. and while two other mer
chantmen were in sight. The dhows had
been noticed lowering about, and their evil
intention was suspected, but it was little
the crew of the brig could do to defend
themselves. They had few old muskets
and cutlasses, but the dhows ran the brig
aboard, poured fifty or sixty men on to her
I decks, and the fight was over in five min
| utes. The mate knowing that all was lost,
| had gone overheard with plank during
! the confusion, and the wind and sea had
| drifted him down across our course. There
was no doubt that every man aboard the
| brig had been cut down or saved for cap
| tivity and ransom, and that the vessel had
been thoroughly plundered by that time,
| but it was lust such an incident as we
wanted to hear of. We hadn't had a brush
| with the pirates for several weeks and were
| getting rusty for the want of work.
'The Spitfire was, of course, sailing
| ship. She was a snug craft of thirty-Six
! guns with strong and ready crew, and the
! first thing done after hearing the sailors
story was to heave her to in the light wind
| and transform her from taught and trim
| man-Of- war into a merchantmen. L had
| charge of this work, and it was not the first
| time we had made the change to deceive the
pirates Inside of three hours the best glass
aboard of a dhow could not have told the
| Spitfire of the Royal navy from the Sarah
Jane of New Bedford. And then we beat
up to the north for further news concern
| ing the brig. The wind was light and
battling, and when night came we had seen
| nothing just at dark, however, a French
bark coming out of Keshin reported seeing
three dhows and brig standing in for bay
between Mirbat and the latter place-a
| hiding place and rendezvous, as we had pre-
| viously been informed. We could do
| nothing going in there in the night but we
stood on till pretty well in to the coast and
| then prepared to lay off and on. After mid
night we got stiffish land breeze and had
| to run to sea- and it was well that this hap
! pened So When morning came we could
| Just make out the coast range of mountains
! through the glass, and the breeze was dead
| against us. 1t was only well into daylight
! when the dhows were espied coming out
| We set signal of distress and pointed the
| ships nose for the Gulf, but we took good
care not to run too fast.
THE success of the evening previous had
embroidered the pirates. | don't know
what sort of looking over they gave us
from their mastheads, but they were GER
tainly deceived as to our identity. They
did not come dead at us on the start, proba-
bly, intending to give us a bit of investiga-
ton, but no sooner did that signal of dis
tress become plain to them than each dhow
altered her course and bore straight down.
Did not our signal call for helps Was it not
their duty TO hasten to our aid! There was
but one other sail i'll sight, and she was
well up the Gulf. The pirates had clear
| coast and a hapesS victim, and they
cracked on all sail They had scarcely
been seen before the Yankee mate recog-
nized them as the identical dhows of the
day previous, and after that we had no
fears of making a mistake. Our whole
crew entered into the scheme with will
While we did not beat to quarters, every
gun was made ready, ammunition passed
up, and long enough before the dhows
were up we had every preparation made.
Two-thirds of the men were kept in shelter
behind the bulwarks, and the pirates could
see nothing TO arouse a suspicion.
1.-THE piratical crafts came along in n
bunch. They were of about the same size
and burden, and each carried fully forty
men. When they had come down within
cannon shot they separated, having proba-
bly, planned to lay us aboard stem and stern,
but our captain did not propose to let it go
that far. While be could have no doubt of
our ability TO clean out the scoundrellv
gang, he realized that a hundred determined
fellows dumped upon our decks with pistols
and cutlaSses meant death and wounds to
some of our crew. Just as the dhows sepa-
rated our ports were knocked open, the guns
run out, and next moment we were Civ
ing it to them hot and heavy,
The fellows could not have been more sur
prised had the sea suddenly opened to swal-
low them up. Each of the dhows had a
couple of cannon on deck, but there was no
thought of using them. The knowledge
that they had caught a Tartar seemed to
unnerve them, and the first dhow had gone
down before either of the other two seemed
to think of escape. Then it was too late.
Our shot went right through them, and
left terrible gaps for the sea to pour in, and
in Just seven minutes by the watch from
the firing of the first gun we got the order
to cease firing.
lone dhow was at the bottom, the second
with her rail awash, and the third was on
her beam end and slowly turning turtle
| The survivors of our cannonade were float
ing about on pieces of the wreckage, but by
the time we had lowered our boats and
picked up seven the rest had been pulled